FIEL Houston director Cesar Espinosa, right, and immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez, center, lead a press conference, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Houston, in response to the executive order President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday meant to end separation of families. The immigration activists argue the executive order is not specific and that children would still be detained. ( Marie D. De Jesús / Houston Chronicle ) less

FIEL Houston director Cesar Espinosa, right, and immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez, center, lead a press conference, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Houston, in response to the executive order President Donald ... more

Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Staff / Houston Chronicle

Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Staff / Houston Chronicle

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FIEL Houston director Cesar Espinosa, right, and immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez, center, lead a press conference, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Houston, in response to the executive order President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday meant to end separation of families. The immigration activists argue the executive order is not specific and that children would still be detained. ( Marie D. De Jesús / Houston Chronicle ) less

FIEL Houston director Cesar Espinosa, right, and immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez, center, lead a press conference, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Houston, in response to the executive order President Donald ... more

The Houston landlord who leased a warehouse to a federal child care contractor said Wednesday has demanded that no children who were separated from their families at the border be housed in the facility.

The statement from landlord David Denenburg was issued a few hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prevent children from being separated from their family during a nationwide crackdown that began in April. Now, entire families who ask for asylum at the border will be held together in family units.

“We have spoken with the tenant and demanded that no children separated from their parents be placed in this facility,” Denenburg said in the statement. “We stand strongly against the separation of children from their parents.”

The announcement Wednesday came as Houston immigration advocates, attorneys and elected officials continued to speak out against the actions by the Trump administration that led to more than 2,000 children being taken from their parents at the southern border.

“This executive order is only being used as a political stunt to seem more compassionate,” Cesar Espinosa, executive director of the FIEL Houston immigrant advocacy group, said at a news conference Wednesday.

Denenburg said that during the lease negotiations with the tenant, Southwest Key Programs Inc., the warehouse at 419 Emancipation near downtown was to house only unaccompanied children detained on the border. The release said that they were told those were children who had arrived at the border without their parents and turned themselves in to federal agents.

City officials said the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement did not make a distinction between unaccompanied children and separated children when they met privately with Mayor Sylvester Turner and the new tenant.

Houston advocates expressed skepticism Wednesday about the reversal of Trump’s border policy, noting that children would still be detained.

Advocacy organizations said the executive order will not end the “inhumane” routine detention of entire families.

“We are adamantly against the detention of families, who are coming across fleeing from dangerous situations from their countries, that are going to be criminally processed,” Espinosa said.

“There is no need to continue terrorizing families; this is not the way we do things in America,” said state Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston.

Carlos Doroteo, a staff lawyer for FIEL, explained that the executive order doesn’t end the Trump administration policy of criminally prosecuting everyone who crosses the border without authorization, regardless of their intention to seek asylum, which isn’t a criminal act.

Criminal provisions under the Immigration and Nationality Act have been enforced by previous administrations who prosecuted criminals entering or encountered inside the country, such as gang members and other delinquents.

“The issue here is that this ‘zero tolerance’ from Trump is criminalizing everyone, so even if kids would be with their parents, they will be jailed as criminals with their parents,” Doroteo said.

Doroteo added that another concern lawyers have is that, since the immigrants are criminally prosecuted in federal court rather than being processed in immigration courts, “We are getting a backload on the criminal cases that are already in the state courts with probably more serious criminal matters that you want to prioritize.”

He added that there are “more humane” ways to deal with families looking for asylum, explaining that the previous policy under President Obama was working. In that case, mothers with kids were released to reunite with families already in the U.S. while waiting for their day in court to present their asylum cases.

“Those immigrants were tracked with ankle monitors but out of detention, and they have over 90 percent compliance with the companies” hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to supervise them, Gonzalez said.

Following the advocates' news conference, dozens of people from several community organizations protested in front of a facility singing and chanting slogans that included: “kids should be free," "no baby jails" and "love will win.”

Daniel Cohen, president of the progressive group Indivisible Houston, said his organization's supporters will “continue fighting against the Trump deportation and detention regime with FIEL and other groups.” Cohen said several protests have been scheduled.

One is the “National Day of Action: Families Belong Together,” planned for June 30 nationwide.

In Houston, it will start at 10 a.m. at City Hall followed by a march to the office of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The same day, Black Lives Matter and other organizations will hold a 5 p.m. demonstration at Discovery Green.